Canik Mete MC9 Review — I Really Wanted to Like It

You guys know I'm a huge Canik fan, and I've had this Mete MC9 for about a year now. There was a lot of negative feedback on this gun right when it dropped — a myriad of things I won't dig all the way into — so I deliberately waited until I had enough rounds through it to give you my own accurate depiction: how it shoots, any malfunctions, the whole nine yards.

Quick background: this is Canik's second crack at a subcompact carry gun after the Elite SC, and their first true deep-conceal polymer striker-fired pistol — about a half inch thinner than the SC was. It's cut for RMSc optics (I've run a Swamp Fox Sentinel on it), has Glock-style takedown, a slide stop, and a loaded chamber indicator. It ships with two magazines, a 15-rounder with an extended pinky base plate that kills the pinky-slippage problem on micro pistols, and a 12-rounder. And here's the genuinely cool part: it takes any TP9-series magazine. I locked in an 18-round TP9 mag off my chest rig and it fired fantastic.

The trigger is where my heart breaks a little. It's a curved trigger — interesting, since Canik usually goes flat — with the integrated safety lever, and the reset is classic Canik: short, crisp, right back at the wall. But there's more take-up on the initial pull than I like, and overall it's just not quite up there with the rest of the TP9 and Canik lineup. Still pretty good; just not the trigger that made me a fanboy.

Reliability, though? I can tell you with 100% surety I have not had a single malfunction with this gun. Not one — around 1,500 rounds over a year, multiple ammo types, shot in hot muggy summer and cool dry winter. I've cleaned it exactly once, around the 600-round mark, just to be a good gun owner. That's a genuinely impressive track record, especially given how many malfunction videos of this gun are floating around — I've seen people have failures on camera. Mine has run like a champ.

On the range it's quick and accurate — good target acquisition, no failures to feed even running the big TP9 mags, and it fits smaller hands fantastically. My whole hand nearly covers the entire gun, and even with larger hands the extended pinky plate gives you a full grip with no slippage. Side by side with a P365 they're about the same width, but the Sig just feels much better in my hand.

So here's my honest bottom line. Would I buy it again? Probably no. Not because it's unreliable — it's been dead reliable — but because I think there are better options for me in the concealed carry market. I don't think it has much purpose outside of concealment, I don't think it's a great home-defense gun, and I would much, much rather shoot an X-Macro, an AXG Legion, or a Hellcat Pro. I still carry my P365 AXG Legion to this day, and the MC9 lives in my gym bag as a second option. That doesn't mean it's not right for you — if you've got smaller hands and want Canik reliability in a deep-conceal package, it's a decent choice. It just wasn't right for me.